The Impostor Queen

by Sarah Fine

  “Let us proceed, then,” I practically shout. At this point, I don’t care what they do to me, as long as it brings the magic out. I know I can’t do it on my own. I feel nothing inside me but empty numbness. Is that my grief, suppressing the ice and fire? If so, then why didn’t Sofia experience the same thing after the death of her Valtia? I remember how sad she looked when she greeted me for the first time. She was still in mourning. Yet she’d already been crowned Valtia. She was already able to wield her power with ease and grace. But if my inability to do the same thing isn’t because of grief, then what’s wrong with me? Am I corrupted by my hungry curiosity, as Aleksi says? Are my desires, which I barely understand myself, causing this? Whatever it is, I’d give anything to fix it.

  I straighten my shoulders and slowly turn in place, letting my icy-blue eyes take in every face. I feel the buzzing waves of numbness radiating from my blood-flame birthmark. I am not a mistake, not a commoner. I was chosen to be Valtia, and the stars were aligned on the day of my birth, and though I don’t know exactly what that means, I know what Sofia said to me.

  Never doubt.

  “Elders,” I say in a high, steady voice. “I will face the trials with eagerness.”

  Kauko nods his approval. “We will begin at midnight, then.”

  The priests get up and begin to file out, but Leevi comes down the stairs and takes me by the arm. “Are you taking me back to my quarters?” I ask. I can’t tell Mim of all my fears—I couldn’t bear to disappoint her—but more than anything right now, I need to feel the warmth of her touch.

  Leevi’s blue eyes are as dark as a grave. “No, my Valtia. We have another place for you to wait.” His grip on me tightens as he marches me up the steps.

  CHAPTER 6

  It is all I can do not to scream. With every breath, I will myself into silence. I tell myself to be still, to focus. I ignore the pain in my knees, my hips, my shoulders, my head. A bit of discomfort is nothing compared to what is at stake.

  When I first saw the copper trunk, I came to a lurching halt, and Leevi dragged me the rest of the way. A single torch lit the tiny chamber, with dripping ceilings and a metallic scent hanging heavy in the air. Leevi had to stoop to avoid hitting his head. He leaned forward and opened the heavy lid, sickly green in the flickering light. Then he gestured toward the hallway, and two female acolytes entered, their eyes downcast. “Remove her clothes and help her inside,” Leevi instructed as I gaped in horror.

  “Elder, why—,” I began.

  He let out a sigh. “We are doing everything we can for you, my Valtia,” he said, an impatient edge sharpening his voice. “Must you question us now? Perhaps your time is best spent focused on the magic and how to use it to serve your people, who so desperately need this gift only you can give them.”

  My cheeks burned with shame. “Yes, Elder,” I whispered.

  He left, and the acolytes stripped me of my clothing, leaving me shivering and naked. They had to help me climb into the cold, unforgiving box because I could not control my trembling. I curled my knees to my chest and lay on my side, the metal walls cold against my shins, my spine, the back of my neck. My nose burned with the scent of sweat and terror.

  “I know you have the magic, my Valtia,” one of the acolytes whispered as she looked down at me. “I hope this helps you.”

  She shut the lid, and I gulped back the first of a thousand stifled screams. I don’t know how long ago they left me here. Long enough for me to see things. Sofia, arching back in pain, her eyes bloodred. Mim, letting down her hair when she thought no one was looking, stroking her hand along her throat as firelight made her skin glow. I hold on to that one for as long as I can, because I swear, I can feel the darkness eating me, first my toes, then my fingertips. I can sense its breath, chilling my skin, reeking of secret horrors.

  I am not the first person to lie in this box. I am not the first person to stain it with the weakness of my body. And I wonder how many others have curled in here before me, and how many of them lost their minds as a result.

  “Stop,” I whisper. “If the elders put you in here, it is because they believe it will help.”

  I saw the need in their eyes, and I know their anger at me comes from that need. They love and serve the people, who depend on the wielders in the temple to protect them. So they have encased me in a copper sarcophagus. . . . Several bits of knowledge interlock at once, pulling my thoughts from my own plight. The Kupari people produce magic wielders, when no one else does. We live on a peninsula rich with copper—it decorates our homes, our bodies. We eat off copper plates and drink from copper pitchers. And to stimulate the magic within their new queen, they have encased her in a copper coffin.

  Copper has something to do with our fire and ice magic—the source of our greatness and our shield against the world—but it seems we are running out of it. And here I lie, prophesied to be more powerful than any Valtia before. Maybe it’s because the Kupari need their queen more than ever.

  Please, I pray. To the magic, the stars, Sofia, and all the Valtias past. Please do not abandon me. I lose myself in those pleas until the coffin squeaks open and the acolytes pull me out. My hair hangs around my face in damp, greasy tendrils, and my fingernails are grimy. I stink—the acolyte wrinkles her nose as she pulls my dress over my head and down my legs, covering my nakedness. If Mim were here, she would never stand for this. Stars, how I wish she were here. I swallow back my sorrow as I think of her face. If she ever looks at me with disappointment, I’ll break.

  Maybe I should be grateful she’s not here now. I want to return to her victorious, so together we can move to the Valtia’s wing as queen and handmaiden. She’s given up so much for me—a regular life, a family, the chance to have children of her own—she deserves honor and ease, and I’m determined to give it to her.

  “We’re taking you back to the testing chamber now, my Valtia,” one of the acolytes says as she takes my elbow and leads me to the corridor.

  I smooth back my hair and try to wet my sticky tongue. I remember Kauko’s assurance, how the trials always work, how under stress, even suppressed magic bursts forth to protect its wielder. I wipe my clammy palms on my dress and follow the other acolyte, who carries a torch to light our way. The three elders are waiting inside the room, the same place we were early this morning, along with one other young female acolyte and a lean male apprentice.

  In his hand is a whip.

  A cold, tingling sensation descends from the top of my head all the way down to my feet. The whip is multi-tailed, several braided strips of leather hanging from the stiff handle. I’ve heard Mim tell of how disobedient servants sometimes get lashes, up to ten at a time, and can’t lie on their backs for days. My stomach goes tight. Very well. The whip. If the prickling, icy feeling in my gut is any sign, the copper grave I’ve just escaped has awakened my sleeping magic, and this will be more than enough to bring it out.

  When I reach the base of the stairs, the apprentice looks me in the eye. But when I smile at him, he looks away, his jaw clenched. The three female acolytes, shaved bald like their apprentice counterparts, push back their hoods and regard me somberly. The elders take their seats, and Aleksi spreads his chubby fingers over his robed knees. “The trials will begin with thirty lashes,” he says loudly. “Acolytes, strip her to the waist.”

  Thirty lashes? I turn my back to the elders so they can’t see my fear. I don’t want the apprentice or the acolytes to see it either. Cool hands touch my shoulders. “Pardon, Valtia,” one of the young women says. She has pale-blue eyes like mine and gentle hands like Mim’s. She unbuttons the back of my dress and bares my skin to men and women alike. My eyes sting with the humiliation as they pull my arms from my sleeves and leave the bodice to hang down over my skirt. I cross my arms over my breasts.

  “This way,” says another of the acolytes, this one with spots all over her face. She was the one who closed the lid of the trunk, whose words of faith were the only spark of light before it all went dark
. Her hands are hot as she guides me to the opposite wall; she must have an affinity for fire magic. She and the third acolyte, who has a lovely, wide face and well-defined cheekbones, each take one of my wrists and raise them over my head, placing my palms flat against the stone wall of the arena. They reach up to the first tier and pull down two bronze cuffs attached to the floor of the tier with a thick chain.

  I let out an involuntary whimper as they close the heavy shackles over my wrists. How different these feel from the cuff of Astia I wore last night. That copper cuff was my ally. I felt it. But these chains—they’re the enemy, heartless and cold. My bare chest touches the damp stone wall, and I shiver violently. After so many hours spent naked in a metal box, with no water and no food since yesterday afternoon, I have no strength to steady myself. The spotty acolyte squeezes my shoulder before releasing me, as if she forgives me for all of it. I want to kiss her cheek in gratitude. I’ll remember that small kindness.

  “Ice magic could shatter those chains,” Kauko says from behind me, his voice echoing off the walls in this near-empty arena. “And fire magic could melt them, allowing you to pull your arms free. Ice and fire together could fling the shards or melted metal away from your skin. Those are but a few of the ways you could show us that the magic is awakened within you.”

  I press my forehead to the stone. “Proceed.”

  When nothing happens, I look at the apprentice out of the corner of my eye. He has hollow cheeks and a soft chin, caught halfway between man and boy. “Go ahead, apprentice,” I say gently. “Do your duty.” I turn my face back to the wall.

  For a moment, there is silence. I wonder if the apprentice will refuse to hit me. But then I hear the quick slide of boots against stone and the whistle of leather in the air, and after that I am made of pain. It explodes across my back like a lightning strike, and no sooner has the agony dulled than it happens again. And again. And again. The inferno of hurt rips a scream from my throat. My back is on fire. The searing flames wrap themselves around my body, licking at my ribs and breasts and stomach. No part of me is safe. The apprentice strikes me again, grunting with the effort.

  “Shatter the chains, Valtia!” cries one of the acolytes.

  Her plea jolts me back to the purpose of this torture. Magic. I am no longer an ordinary girl. I felt something last night as I lay prostrate on that stone slab—the Valtia’s power finding its new home. And I just spent hours encased in copper, which has to be the source of our strength. I have the magic inside me somewhere, and now I need it. Badly.

  Ice, come to me.

  The whip bites at the flesh from my neck to my waist. My body moves without my permission, my wrists yanking against the cuffs as the leather claims its prize once again. My backbone arches and bows, desperate to save itself from the molten agony. My mind is burning to ash. Finally, numbness splashes over me, filling every space. My legs give out, and I hang, my cheek pressed to cool stone, my hair plastered to my forehead.

  “Please, Elder,” says the apprentice, his words coming between heavy breaths. “Enough.” His tone is pleading.

  “That’s only been twelve,” says Aleksi. “Continue, Armo.”

  Armo the apprentice lets out a shaky breath.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Continue,” I say in a broken whisper. I want him to cut me open with that whip. I want him to unearth my dormant magic. I’m not whole without it, and I’m depending on him to bring it out. “Armo, please.”

  Armo makes a choked noise, but a moment later the whip strikes, so hard that I cannot help the shriek that comes from my throat. On and on it goes, until I lose count, until I’m beyond reason, until I’m on fire—but I have no ice to save me. I hang from my cuffs, blood from my wrists trickling down my forearms and dripping onto my shoulders and chest. Smearing on the rock.

  Blood. Copper. Fire. Ice. I am Kupari, and these things make me what I am.

  “Show me your mark,” my Valtia said as we sat on her balcony. “Where is it? They never told me.”

  I tugged up my gown with my skinny ten-year-old fingers and showed it to her. She smiled. “Lovely,” she said. “So vivid.” She stroked it with the backs of her fingers. “Would you like to see mine?”

  I nodded, my cheeks warming. She turned her back and swept her thick, coppery locks to one side, then pushed her gown off her left shoulder. And there, on the wing of her shoulder blade, was the flame. “It’s so small,” I blurted out, itching to trace my fingers over it.

  She chuckled. “Tiny,” she said, winking at me. “Only half the size of yours. And yet still I made the firebreak that saved us from the inferno at the edge of the Loputon forest last summer. And I was strong enough to summon cold so complete that it choked that same mighty fire out of existence.”

  I began to stammer my apologies, embarrassed at my clumsy words, but she shook her head and pulled her gown back onto her shoulder. She put her arm around me. “Darling, you have nothing to be sorry about.” She touched my burning cheek with her cool fingertip. “Only remember what I can do, though my mark is tiny, though it took the elders months to find me, though it was only by chance that they found me at all. And imagine what you will someday be able to do.”

  I fall backward into the arms of one of the acolytes, my arms splayed, my wrists free. I did it. Thank the stars above.

  The young woman looks down at me with tears on her lovely face. “Please use your magic, Valtia,” she begs, holding me tight as we sink to the floor.

  I stare at the ceiling, too weak and agonized to move. “I didn’t?” I whisper. But my whole body is on fire! “Didn’t I just melt the chains?”

  She shakes her head and gestures up at the shackles, hanging open, still dripping with my blood. Behind me, I hear a terrible noise. Armo, sobbing. The girl with the spots is cooing to him, telling him he only did his duty, reminding him that I asked him to. But it doesn’t console him. His grating cries only stop when Elder Aleksi’s voice strikes as surely as that whip. “Clean her up,” he barks. “And then bring her to the temple dock for the next trial. We’ll prepare the boat.”

  “Elder,” says the spotty acolyte, her voice breathy. “She’s too weak. Maybe—maybe Elder Kauko could heal her wounds first?”

  “She is the Valtia!” Aleksi roars. “If she’s not strong enough to heal herself, she’s not fit to rule. And if you question me again, I’ll order your immediate cloistering.” His stomping footsteps fade from hearing, followed by the slower, less violent footfalls of Kauko and Leevi.

  The spotty acolyte’s hand shakes as she rubs it over her bald head. “I’m not due to be cloistered for another five years at least,” she says in a squeaky voice.

  Next to me, Armo vomits all over the floor. “I can’t,” he moans. “I can’t witness this.”

  The spotty acolyte frowns. “If he doesn’t pull himself together, priest Bernold might call for him to be cloistered and find another apprentice to take his place.”

  “Then let him stay here,” says the acolyte with blue eyes and soothing hands. She has a mole on her cheek, small and round. “We can take her to the dock.”

  I float in a fog of hurt as the three female acolytes press cloths to my back, then pull my sleeves over my arms and button my dress. “Those bandages won’t hold, Kaisa,” says the spotty one.

  “I know, Meri,” says Kaisa, the girl with the mole. “But if we take too long, the elders will be furious.”

  “I’ll stay with Armo,” says the girl with the wide, pretty face. She pats his back. He’s staring down at the bloody whip. “I’m due to be cloistered soon,” she adds with a sigh, “so it won’t matter if they make me start it a few days early.” She offers all of us a smile. “Besides, Salli was cloistered a few months ago, and I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

  Meri and Kaisa lift me from the floor and drape my arms over their shoulders. Slowly, they half carry me up the stone stairs and into the maze of the catacombs. My head hangs forward, and it’s all I can do to move my feet.
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  “They’ve already started the search for the new Saadella,” Meri says quietly.

  “I hope they find her soon,” murmurs Kaisa. “People are scared. They need something to buoy their spirits.”

  A tear falls from my eye. I’m supposed to buoy their spirits. I would do anything to give my people that confidence. But these two acolytes are speaking as if I’m a hunk of bear meat and nothing more. As kind as they are, I know they’re full of doubt, and it echoes in the hollow place inside of me, filling my chest with painful pressure as it joins with my own fear that I am failing everyone.

  Meri pulls me to the left, guiding us down a dark corridor with a single lit torch at the end of it. “Did you hear about the fight at the thieves’ caverns? Armo was telling me earlier.”

  “I heard the same rumor—that two miners were burned.”

  “Wielders?” I whisper. Do the elders know there might be wielders in the outlands? I want to ask, but the one word I’ve already said has drained all my energy.

  “More likely, one of those sons of weasels tossed a shovelful of flaming pitch at the miners,” Kaisa scoffs. She squeezes my arm as we reach the end of the corridor, and her voice softens. “But even if there was a fire wielder in the outlands, he will be no match for you once you find your magic, my Valtia.”

  Kaisa and Meri escort me into a chamber with a long wooden table along one side. Stars, it smells of blood in here. But then again, that might be coming from me.

  “Whether it’s a wielder or not,” says Meri, “the people need reassurance now.” There’s a pause, and though I don’t raise my head, I know both of them are looking down at me. I’m what the people need. As soon as I find my magic, I’ll settle the issue in the caverns and rid that place of squatters so our miners can do their work. Determination flutters beneath all the doubt. I will not give up yet.

  We leave the chamber and proceed down the long, wide tunnel that leads to the dock. Kaisa lets Meri hold me up while she pushes open a rusty metal door, bathing us in the chilly night air. The sound of the Motherlake lapping at the dock is like coming home. It finds me within my shell of pain, my core of numb, and I take a deep, shuddering breath.